Friday, June 21, 2013

Longtime readers of this fancy "web log" know that we latched onto this image of fanciful concrete bollards, submitted as part of the interminable paperwork associated with the proposal for the Reston Station development, and have since run the joke into the ground used it as visual shorthand for all the midrise development a'comin down the pike in our beloved earth-toned community, much as we've been accused of using a beloved carb-intensive eatery as a metaphor for the pervasive midscale chain goodness that's filled our fake downtown gritty urban core. However, on a recent jaunt to a purportedly "transit-oriented" development in neighboring Herndon that happens to be nowhere near any transit but happens to share the annoying naming conventions of our own TOD projects, we stopped dead in our tracks:

ZOMG, as the kids today no longer say text. Fanciful concrete bollards, in vaguely pleasing proportions, as far as the eye can see, keeping harried commuters from driving straight across the one traffic circle that somehow managed to sneak its way into Herndon. The legends are true!

"One way," indeed. Do we even need to point out that prophetic sign is pointing towards Reston? No we do not, the end.

Those are NOT bollards, silly rabbits. They are the balloon-type sentinels from the 1960s TV classic "The Prisoner" that chase down anyone who tries to leave Reston...I mean The Village.

If you think about it, Reston really is like The Village. To quote one reviewer from the IMDB entry on The Prisoner:

"The Village is a prison camp, but with all of the amenities of a vacation resort. Attractive dwellings, shops, restaurants, etc. exist side by side with high-tech methods of keeping order and extracting information from those who won't give it up willingly."